Although we all love a good home cooked meal, sometimes they can be stressful if you're not a "throw something together" type person. As a result, it's easy to order in, go out or just munch on that random bag of potato chips in your cupboard. Here are five ways that will make eating at home easier to do and remember!
1. Put "Meal Baskets" In Your Pantry: Just like laying your clothes out the night before you head off to work can help your morning routine, prepping your food can do the same thing. Inside each "meal basket" put all the dry goods needed for the meal along with a notecard of the additional fresh ingredients needed. It might not save you a million years of prep time, but it does save you the trouble of hemming and hawing over what to make and allows you to commit to cooking!
2. Shop Weekly: Growing up, my parents cooked at home almost every night of the week. Mom was a great shopper and hit up the grocery store every two weeks to take care of the bulk of her shopping. In today's world, I find myself shopping every few days. Both shopping strategies can have negative effects: either you don't have anything to cook and would rather just go out, or your fridge is so packed it seems like a hassle. Once a week shopping can be the easiest for meal planning and keeping things fresh.
3. Do The Dishes: Although many are trained in the art of ninja dish doing, I would rather do anything on the planet besides the dishes. Seriously, it's a problem. Doing them daily means you have a clean kitchen when you're ready to cook. It really is that simple.
4. Allow Yourself A Cheat Night: Going out to eat or ordering in isn't the end of the world and more often than not, it's downright tasty too. Cooking at home is fun, but taking a break is great. Plan on eating out one night a week, even two, and build it into your schedule so that the rest of the week you know what your meal plans are.
5. Plan, Plan, Plan: It goes without saying that for a week of eating at home to be successful you have to have planned in advance. You have to know what meals you or your family loves, plan them out and go to the store to purchase those items. Thirty minutes is all it takes each week, something that can easily be done during your favorite TV show. This step of planning is one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself!
Related: Kitchen Basics: 15 Ways to Start Cooking At Home
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These are great.
Number six - The freezer is your best friend.
I would also add that having a short list of "pantry meals" is very useful for nights that dinner out gets canceled or someone eats most of the leftover chili or you realize you CAN burn corn chowder in the crockpot.
I second the freezer comment. I have been doubling lots of my recipes these days to make sure there are leftovers for lunch the next day as well as an extra meals worth in the freezer. Sometimes, I am too lazy to cook, don't want to go out and still want to have something tasty and probably healthier than having something delivered. There is always something in the freezer to have. Soup and Chili are defiantly freezer staples!
Such nice tips for making delicious food. :)
Great tips! I also keep an "backup grocery list" to help me with meal planning.
For those weeks that I'm tired and having trouble coming up with inspiration for new ideas (or when I'm in a hurry and don't have time to plan), I go to my list. It includes my top 10 or so tried and true recipes that are absolute favorites. I include a link to the recipe (or what cookbook it's from) AND I include a list of ingredients for each one that I can just copy and paste into my grocery list.
Also: pre-prep. When you bring home veggies, wash and prep them before throwing them in the fridge. It will encourage you to utilize the kale you bought if it is washed, chopped, and sitting in a colander just waiting to be used, instead of hiding it in the crisper until it's sad and wilted.
Great tips! I would also add just keep it simple. A meal does not have to consist of super gourmet fare or a consist of several componets like a main, side, grain, veggie etc. For example on a busy night where I don't have time or feel much like cooking I just have a fried egg sandwhich on wheat bread with lettuce and tomato. I pair it with an apple or banana and that's dinner. Nothing fancy, but is filling and easy to prepare. If I have some soup saved in the freezer I'd add that too. A meal can consist of any whole food you feel like preparing. Meals don't have to be magagzine cover worthy. Don't over think a meal be it breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Also, plan some quick-to-prepare meals and some not. That way if you're running late one night you can use the quick meal and use one that takes more prep work another night. On nights with entrees that take a lot of prep work, use easier-to-prepare sides to go with them.
I'm not sure how much time you all have throughout the day, but I like too take a brain break during my lunch hour and scour the web for quick, easy, pantry-friendly meals I can make that night without a trip to the grocery store. I obviously love thekitchn but check out http://tasteologie.notcot.org/ too.
They update around the clock it seems like, so you should be able to find at least one recipe throughout the day that will work for you.
I also agree that keeping a pantry and freezer stocked with staples helps tremendously with this!
Another helper is to soak the cookware while you eat so clean up afterward is easier. This might mean transferring food to a serving platter/bowl, but you'll still be ahead by letting the grimy stuff soak while you're eating.
Totally agree with passthepepper. Today's lunch was leftover garlic green beans with a fresh poached egg over top. I added some hummus (homemade several days ago) and whole grain crackers (not homemade, but high quality) for some added balance. Super simple!
This is my go-to from the freezer-and-pantry dinner. It requires only fresh garlic and lime...I make it about once a week. Endlessly variable as well ...add green, cubed potatoes, sweet potatoes, serve in a tortilla, as a side to eggs for a twist on rancheros...
http://howtorunyourlife.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-to-make-dinner-tonight-in-less-than.html
This an linguini with (canned) clams saves my bacon (which can use bacon if you like. Make sure you put an anchovy in the oil along with the garlic and mash it up well, and add hot red chili flakes to the oil too. Then the clams with their juice, a glug of white wine if you have it, and toss with cooked pasta. Easy, cheap, super delicious.
Also, cooking on Sunday (or your day off) is a good idea.
My trick is: make a meal that can turn into 3-4 meals and you're golden. An example: yesterday morning before work, I marinated some chicken for kabobs. Husband gets home about an hour before me, so he added vegetables to the marinade. I cooked rice, he grilled the 'bobs.
We sat down to watch a TV show and I popped a head of garlic in the oven to roast. After the TV show was over, husband did the dishes. I took the garlic and combined it with some white beans, diced the leftover veggies from the kabobs and threw together a white bean salad, which we both had for lunch today.
Tomorrow if there is any left over, I'll puree it into a spread for some toasts or serve it over spinach with some feta. Or add some baked fish.
What is the alternative to eating at home?
Knowing a handful of tasty dishes by heart is key. Also,Give yourself permission to fail in the kitchen as well. Some of the best dishes come from experimenting with the random things in your pantry. If it is bad well you learnt something and made yourself a better cook by learning.
One other thing! Dinner does not always need to be cookbook worthy. It can just be something you find tasty. Some of the best meals do not always look great. As much as I love cookbooks and websites and even have my own food blog not everything need to look like it belongs in a fancy cooking magazine. It is ok to have simple tasty stuff that looks so so but makes you happy
I found a few other things save me from last minute takeout.
I always keep on hand these basics: bread, butter, eggs, pasta, cheese, and beans. I find that with these basic things I can make a meal in under 20 minutes using up whatever scraps of veggies, herbs, or meat we have around.
I also try to look over the recipes I plan for the week before hand and make sure I'm not committing myself to a 2 hour prep session and double sink load of dishes. Nothing spells takeout like a recipe with 20 steps and 15 ingredients after a long day of work. Save the more involved recipes for the weekend!
When I prep my meal list for the week, I plan meals that will work as leftovers the next night. Sunday's meal will be leftovers on Monday, Tuesday's meal will be leftovers on Wednesday, Thursday's leftovers for Friday. It can be as easy as re-heating the same exact meal, or making a new meal out of some of the leftover ingredients. This saves me a lot of time. I will also do some of my meal prepping - like cooking the veggies in the oven- the night before after my baby goes to sleep so I don't have to do it the next night when I could be spending more time with her. This can be hard when you are super tired from the day though, and sometimes the couch wins.
Oh, and I have to second kpaupau! If I make chicken or beef, I always try to make more than I need for one night. Last night's leftovers are today's reimagined masterpiece. Tacos are my favorite way to use up leftover meat, but I also enjoy making fried rice with leftover rice or creating a special grilled cheese loaded with yesterday's meat.
adding on to #5, Use technology to your advantage. I hold on to dinner lists from previous weeks of meals, I make all my dinner lists in evernote. When I'm completely baffled on what to make I can flip through previous weeks for inspiration (or know to avoid something, because we've had it 3 times in the last month and if I try to make it again this week, my husband is going to order pizza)
Cooking in bulk for sure.
Something my husband does is prepping a crockpot meal the night before and putting it in the inner crockpot dish in the fridge. In the morning, pop that into the crockpot and turn it on and when we get home, a meal ready to go, and a couple days worth of leftovers to pack up.
2, 3, and 5 are the keys for me. Also, buying in bulk when a protein (chicken, beef, pork) go on sale make it a lot easier, because I always know I at least have a good foundation for a meal in the freezer. I also try to put a lot of variety into my plan using different ingredients so we don't get bored. Like Sunday night was a red wine chicken risotto, and last night was an asian pork stir fry. Both easy to put together, but very different.
I am the laziest person and I am always running late but I also hate buying my lunch when I am work. So I "discovered" lots of hot meals that I can "cook" in the microwave at work by just throwing a few ingredients into a microwave safe dish in less than 5 minutes. Trader Joes is the KEY for this -
Recent faves:
- frozen turkey meatballs, fresh presliced mushrooms, prewashed spinach, jarred pasta sauce, sprinkle parm
- frozen chiken (BBQ terriaki withouth the sauce), frozen broccoli romanesco, brown rice
Sometimes I just have a collection of snacks--veggies and dip, cut up fruit, popcorn, nuts, etc. Easy to always have those things on hand and healthy + filling. Also I save glass jars from salsa and stuff and freeze individual portions of homemade chili + soup in them. Pop them in the microwave and eat with crackers or toasted bread. Yum :)
When I used to make meal plans with my roommate, not only did we divvy up the cooking and dish cleaning, we included a "forage" night each week. This was a night that one or both of us were going to be running late or not home or on a weird schedule. That meant you could order take out, get a pizza, eat a bowl of cereal or scavenge for leftovers. In other words dinner was whatever you found. There is no rule that dinner has to be a plated perfection.
Brinner! I make dinner easy by making breakfast foods. I so prefer a restaurant-quality "proper" adult meal at dinner, but I had to find a way to get healthy food on the table quickly during the week. I serve _______ and fruit. It's always a hit, no matter how I fill in the blank.
Lonibelle, your corn chowder comment cracked me up!
;-)
what helps me making hasty and dreadful food decisions is the quick food mood board i put together on pinterest - easy, healthy and less than 15 minute meals - all too often i've scoffed down a pizza or much much worse before I remember an easy and much healthier tasty option.
I second using Evernote-such a great tool! You can save recipes and tag them to make searching easier. You can also have quick access to recipes while grocery shopping or share a recipe with someone else for meal planning/grocery store purposes.